Cazalet Looking to adapt ratings for IFAs

Life office analyst Ned Cazalet is in discussions with Aifa to make a simplified version of his influential financial strength ratings available to IFAs.

Cazalet Financial Consulting produces an annual analysis of the life industry but the cost is seen as prohibitive for many IFAs.

As well as acting as a consultant to leading financial services firms, Cazalet has advised the Treasury, including working on the Myners&#39 report which questioned the levels of IFAs&#39 investment knowledge.

Cazalet&#39s life report is well known for its forthright conclusions and colourful language, as well as its disregard for life companies&#39 traditional reliance on free-asset ratios as indicators of financial strength.

Life 2001, published last June, predicted that the future of Royal & Sun Alliance&#39s life business was “in the balance”. This prediction arguably came true when R&SA was forced to stop writing with-profits business in December.

Cazalet says: “We are looking at ways of making the ratings more widely available and broadening distribution. We were so negative about R&SA that when we get something like that right there is high demand. We had chats with various people about doing it but nothing has been agreed yet.”

Aifa director of policy and technical services Fay Goddard says: “We are in discussions but we have not agreed a timetable.”

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